Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a knife and scissors, and more particularly, to a knife and scissors having a protection means that can prevent an unpredicted accident to a user and provide a sense of safety in terms of appearances.
Discussion of the Related Art
In general, knives and scissors are widely used as portable consumer cutting devices.
Various types of knives are available, such as a doubled-edged knife with top and bottom blades and a single-edged knife with a bottom blade. A typical kitchen knife has only a bottom blade (i.e., single-edged). The kitchen knife is used as a tool with which food materials are processed for cooking in a kitchen, for example, vegetables, meat, and fish are cut or various condiments including peppers, garlic, etc. are chopped.
Specifically, the blade formed at the bottom of the body of the knife is formed into various shapes such as a straight line or arc, with a wedge-shaped cross section. When a user applies a certain amount of pressure downward on an object, holding the handle of the knife, the object is cut in proportion to the force applied to it.
Scissors are a cutting device with two bodies connected by a hinge. As a user moves two handles of the scissors with facing blades upon a hinge so that the handles may approach or move away from each other, the pair of blades are brought into close contact and thus cut an object between them. One body of the scissors is formed roughly into a similar shape to a knife blade.
Specifically, the body of the knife or the bodies of the scissors are tapered toward its end or their ends along a length direction so that its cross section or their cross sections may decrease toward the end(s). Thus, the distal end(s) of the body (bodies) are pointed.
Knives or scissors are often used in a place such as a kitchen and an office in a daily living. Their sharp ends often bring about safety incidents. Moreover, users feel unsafe due to their concerns about safety risks involved in knives or scissors.
Sometimes, a kitchen knife needs to be used in a reverse direction. For example, when a user processes a food material having an outer skin to be peeled off, such as seafood or fruit, the user reverses the knife to point the blade upward and removes the outer skin with the sharp tip of the end of the knife inserted into a specific part of the food material. In this state, the user generally applies force forward and upward.
Different parts of an object to be processed or cut require different amounts of pressure. Therefore, the blade often slips off the object, causing an unpredicted safety incident. This incident occurs because it is difficult to apply a force uniformly due to the reverse use of the blade in an upward-pointing state and the blade is likely to point toward the user.
Although a portable consumer cutting device such as a conventional knife or scissors has a simple structure and thus is readily manufactured and carried, it has a high risk of safety incidents according to its use state. If a safety device is added to the portable consumer cutting device, the portable consumer cutting device is excessively complex in structure and causes higher manufacture cost, which makes it unpractical to add the safety device.